What's next ?

[Iron_Druid]

I am a beginner to programming and I need some sort of guidence. I've read  "PHP 5 for Dummies" book and I am going to reread it in order to refresh some things. What is my next step to improve myself as a PHP programmer ?

I have code just 2 programms:

First one: The Resolver
[code]

<?php
$ip = gethostbyname($host);

echo  "<form action='ip.php' method='POST'>\n
  <input type='text' name='host'>\n
  <input type='submit' value='Resolve'>\n
  </form>\n";

if ($ip != $host)
    echo "The IP address for <i>$host</i> is <i>$ip</i>.";
else
    echo "Please enter a valid hostname or domain name<i>$host</i>.";
?>
[/code]

and the seconds: Sheepcounter
[code]
<?php
$number =0;
$counter =0;
$testvar ="true";
while ($testvar != "false")
{
  $sum= $number + $counter;
  $sheep_number = number_format($sum);
  echo " $sheep_number  sheeps\n";
  $counter++;
}
?>
[/code]

What is my next step to improve myself ?

Cheers,
Druid

[hackerkts]

Start your own project, for me the very first project I did was clone http://www.getlivemessenger.com/

The most imporatant is the php part.

Practice make perfect.

[zq29]

In my opinion, just reading books is not the best way to learn, you need to actually write some scripts. The manual (php.net) is the best resource for learning PHP I think.

[Iron_Druid]

[quote author=hackerkts link=topic=101779.msg403095#msg403095 date=1153827535]
Start your own project, for me the very first project I did was clone http://www.getlivemessenger.com/

The most imporatant is the php part.

Practice make perfect.
[/quote]

Well I did not understand you "clone" point. Could you be more specific.
Yes, practice is the path to improve myself but I need a little help here (where should I start practicing ? )

Cheers
Druid

[wildteen88]

The more you program the better you get as you are gettig to understand the language as well as gaining experience. So rather than sitting down and reading a book. Go away sit down for an hour or two and see what you come up with.

For my first PHP project I learnt how to create a simple app which stores jokes and displays them. After completing the turorial I went away and basically took it apart and put it back together again learning how it works etc, then I set about creating my own simple guestbook from what I had learnt. Within a couple of hours I had a very basic functioning guestbook and learnt alot, with how to use if/else statements, adding  and retrieving data from a database, basically the simple stuff. I must of created about 5 different version of the guestbook, each version getting more complex adding more features etc.

Also a good thing to do is to download other peaoples work and have a look through the source code, hacking it apart seeing how it works, how they have created it etc.

[zq29]

Also, a good method of learning, as previously mentioned elsewhere by one of our members (Crayon_Violent), is to read peoples problems on our forums, and even if you don't know the answer - Do some research and build a working solution.

On the odd occasion I learn something new, or improve on something I already knew by offering solutions to peoples problems. For example, a few days back I learnt how to list all of the physical drives attached to the web server because someone asked how it could be done, I went off and done some research to see if a few of my possible ideas would work, turns out it did work, and I learnt something I probably wouldn't use myself - But hey, you never know!

[Iron_Druid]

I really appreciate you for your kind replies. I think I should try to experiment with other people's code and browsing the phpfreaks.com forum.

Thanks a lot

Cheers,
Druid